


Oh, For We Are Decadent and Broken

by paperclipbitch



Category: Demons (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Wow, ahaha i literally just remembered that i wrote this and this fandom existed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you keep watching it in the hope one day he’ll do something different?” Mina asks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh, For We Are Decadent and Broken

**Author's Note:**

> [originally posted on LJ February 2009] Dudes, who remembers _Demons_? I apparently wrote a few fics, so thought I'd pop one over here, for variety. Basically, I will forever be frustrated that _Demons_ wasn't the show that it could have been, and was instead ESPECIALLY ridiculous.

_I’m trying not to move;  
It’s just your ghost passing through._  
\- Tori Amos

Mina sighs when she finds him in the Stacks at four in the morning, watching Jay’s original tape and drinking his fifth shitty coffee mixed with the gin she hides in an empty book. Rupert doesn’t turn to look at her; he wasn’t aware she was still here, but Mina keeps her broken hours and does as she pleases and he’s never tried to impinge on that.

This is her space; she fumbles her way slowly into a chair, gloved fingers curled tight to the back. Damaged, but never helpless.

Rupert splashes a touch more gin into his mug and pushes it towards her. Mina finds it after a moment, raises it to her lips, taking a sip.

“Ooh, that’s _foul_ ,” she mutters, putting it back on the table and pushing it back to him. Her lipstick has left a smooth red smear on the rim, and he hesitates for a moment before turning the cup and drinking from the other side. On the screen, Jay clutches Luke too close and pretends that he loves him; the first flames of madness are clear even through the grainy recording. The tape stutters, a line slips across the screen, and once again Rupert watches his best friend make the worst possible decision.

“Do you keep watching it in the hope one day he’ll do something different?” Mina asks, soft and hesitant. Her posture is straight enough to make his spine hurt in sympathy, her blank eyes fixed just above the television screen.

To reply to that would be to give Mina a little too much of himself. A little too _much_ and he won’t.

“It’s late,” he mutters.

It never works on Mina. “I’m not human,” she responds in the same tone: a statement of fact, a reminder. She never rests; he wonders if she’s tired.

The tape stops. He reaches for the remote, hits rewind.

+

Father Simeon likes _no one_ , but he has a special brand of loathing that he only breaks out when Rupert is around. He’s kept a stopper in it, like a fine wine, for however many godforsaken years he’s spent _lingering_ (it can’t be called _living_ , and it’s not _dying_ because of the goddamn technicalities) and he releases the intensity of his dislike whenever Rupert walks in.

Of course, it would probably only be _fair_ to admit that Rupert has never exactly done anything to endear himself. He’s not about making people _like_ him.

Not like Jay, anyway, who smiled almost sheepishly at the Half Lifes as he killed them; who managed murder with a bloody sort of charm. He somehow got people to _like_ him while never _committing_ to anything. He made Simeon smile once, which was disturbing, but then Jay never took it as personally as Rupert does. He didn’t lose his wife to the Half Life. His father handed him a gun one day, brought him to the Stacks, left him to kiss Mina Harker’s hand and hope for the best. Jay was put into this world. Rupert was dragged in, broken nails and shadows in the corners of rooms, the thin line between determination and sheer madness.

With Jay around, it all became less real. Lines were blurrier, a matter of life and death became a little easier. Until he fell, anyway, and things _changed_.

(Simeon’s only _angry_ because he wanted his slice of Little Baby Luke. Lullabies and flies and maybe it’s true that Rupert would have killed Jay himself to save the kid from that fate.)

+

“Your problem,” Mina explains, “Is that you loved Jay too much.” Her crimson-painted mouth twitches a little. “Maybe you _still_ love him.”

“Do you really expect me to answer that?” Rupert bites off, over the crunch of technology. Only the _best_ in the Stacks, which means of course that the goddamn coffee machine never works and they haven’t upgraded to DVD yet. Half of Mina’s records are still on eight-tracks, yet more can only be played on gramophones. She’s comforted by the age, though he never is.

He’s making a fresh recording of Jay’s tape; the one he always _wishes_ Jay had left for his son. The one where Jay does the right thing.

“No.” Mina drops her gaze, fiddles with her gloves. Her lips curl though it isn’t a smile. “You’re editing history.” The tone sharp and accusing.

“Maybe I am,” he snaps, tone too challenging.

“You can’t undo the past just because you’ve wiped it’s nose and stuck a plaster on it’s knee,” she murmurs. “You can’t make what happened _not happen_ , no matter how hard you try.”

“Luke doesn’t need to know,” Rupert snarls. “He doesn’t need to know.”

Mina sighs, reaching for his arm. Rupert childishly moves, too far for her to reach. Her fingers close over the air, and her jaw tightens. She returns her hand to her lap.

“He’ll hate you for this one day,” she warns darkly.

“That a prophesy?” he demands.

He hits the button; the tape stops copying just before Jay promises Luke that the Half Life will care for him. 

“An educated guess,” Mina responds stiffly.

Rupert takes the new tape from the machine, sliding it into a white cardboard case. It’s a lie, yes; but so much _prettier_ than the truth.

+

He feigned an identity when he took Luke from the car, called the police, and handed the child over to a female officer who cooed as he cried, bouncing him on her hip. Rupert gave the vehicle registration, lingered until he was sure someone had contacted Jenny, and then walked off into the night.

The funeral was a sombre affair; Mina waited in the car, refusing to enter the graveyard, wearing a black cloche hat and an unreadable expression. Jenny wept against Rupert’s shoulder for what seemed an eternity; baby Luke’s eyes were very blue and close to accusing though of course he was too little to know what was happening.

Rupert told himself it was stupid to be inwardly glad that a _car accident_ had killed Jay Van Helsing; that he never had to come up with a cheap cover story for Jenny when Jay was ripped apart by Half Lifes with too many teeth and a penchant for cruelty. The accident seemed like a ridiculous way for such a man to die; but Rupert can see the dizzy, accusing look in Jay’s eyes before the car exploded and each time he blinks it feels like damnation.

_Jay_ believed Rupert had killed him.

When he finally returned to the car, Mina was sitting in the exact same position she had been in when he’d left.

“Did you set up the accident?” she asked, without preamble.

“You think I murdered him?” Rupert responded, shreds of incredulity in his tone.

Mina tapped her fingers against her knee; black lace gloves and a dress a little too elaborate for the occasion.

“I believe you’re _capable_ of it,” she told him. “But I don’t know whether you did or not.”

Rupert grimaced at her, but she couldn’t see anyway.

“I didn’t,” he told her, and left unsaid the: _but I did consider it_.

+

“It’s been us for too long,” Mina sighs, when it’s just the two of them in the Stacks.

That’s certainly one way of putting it. Luke and Ruby are too loud, too impetuous, and Rupert has spent the last seventeen _fucking_ years telling himself that he’ll get Jay back when Luke is of age.

Luke isn’t Jay. Maybe it’s a relief, but mostly it’s a hollow disappointment.

“Is he pretty?” Mina asks at last, when Rupert refuses to give her an answer.

“Very,” Rupert allows. “Young and pure and beautiful and everything that this life screws up and makes ugly.”

Mina’s smile is sad; she gropes for his hand and he allows her to find it. The leather of her gloves is cool against his skin; everything about her flushed cold from eternal death or something like it.

“I’m sorry,” she offers.

He doesn’t ask, because of course she _knows_ ; he doesn’t want sympathy, and only looks embarrassed because she can’t see it. 

“You never liked Jay,” he mutters.

Her sightless eyes are staring at nostalgia, at memories he can’t begin to guess at.

“No,” she agrees, soft, “I always preferred you.”

She abruptly lets go of his hand, steps away.

“You’re the only one who ever _did_ ,” Rupert can’t stop himself from murmuring.

Her laugh is rueful. “Oh, I _know_.”

+

When they’re alone, Mina lets enough of her guard drop. Just for him, _only_ for him; the nervous tics begin to slip out. She’s folded elegantly into an armchair, sipping at Earl Grey – Rupert has a cup too, and he’s _never liked_ tea but he’s drinking it _for her_ – her blood running through tubing. Cleansing her of her sins or some shit like that.

She bites at her lips, until her lipstick is smeared crimson over her resolutely not pointed teeth, catching them over and over, until it must hurt, until she’s almost breaking the skin.

“Do you want to tell Luke the truth?” Rupert asks.

She gazes unseeingly at the tubes erupting from her skin, cleaning her blood. “No,” she replies. “I’m rather enjoying getting to be a _person_. I like that Luke and Ruby just see me as a mad blind woman who can play the piano fairly well. It makes a nice change.”

“How do you think _I_ view you?” 

Her lower lip is pinched between her teeth; Mina takes her time replying. “You see me as a Freak. You’ve Graded me, and you’re ready to Smite me the minute I break.”

Rupert could lie to her, but he won’t. He owes her that much.

“I would give you a _chance_ ,” he assures her.

Mina’s face crumples, just for a moment. And then she wipes her mouth with her shaky white bare fingers, cleaning away the sour red lipstick marks. Pristine, calm.

“I think you will,” she agrees. “And I’ll be grateful for it.”

+

Jay was bright and determined, a white knight on a crusade of light with Rupert bringing up the rear, teeth gritted, working on the memory of _agony_ rather than the belief in a better future.

But Jay slid, and Rupert watched him slide, and couldn’t fix it. Luke has seen the edited tape, the strong promise of a loving father, and has placed Jay Van Helsing on the pedestal he deserves. Rupert wishes he could keep Jay on an immaculate pedestal in his own mind, but he was the one running down the street after the car screaming at his friend to _reconsider_ , and those few shattered minutes were enough to make him lose all faith in him.

He still cares; more than he _should_ do, really, which is probably why he is not warning Luke of the perils. He is not mentioning what could _happen_ if he does anything other than hate the Half Life with every burning fibre of his body.

(Rupert doesn’t hate any more, but he’s so weary that he’s incapable of really feeling anything for anyone, which seems to do the job anyway.)

“Maybe it would have worked out,” Mina tells him patiently, straight-backed in a chair as Rupert gets steadily more drunk in front of the video tape, the sound quality blurring from constant use. “Maybe the Half Life would have _cared_ for Luke.”

“Until the day they got bored or he made too much noise or the wind changed direction and they bit his head off,” Rupert responds, because he’s had this discussion in his own head too many fucking times.

“Not all of us are as cruel as you imagine,” Mina murmurs.

“‘Us’?” Rupert echoes. “No, _we’re_ us, the Half Life are _them_.”

“Would you have trusted me with Luke?” Mina asks sharply, ignoring him.

“Yes,” Rupert lies stubbornly.

“You don’t trust me,” Mina responds, shrugging. “Not with the things that really _matter_. You think that if _I’d_ been given Luke I’d have been sucking the blood out of him before Jay had even closed the door.”

Rupert is too drunk and too tired for this conversation. He ignores her, hitting rewind on the machine, hearing the video crunch as it changes direction.

Mina sighs bitterly, and leaves him to it.

+

“You loved Jay,” Mina decides, “But you won’t ever, _ever_ love me.”

Rupert’s life broken into ten words. Ten flat, resigned words.

He doesn’t say _it’s taken you long enough to figure it out_ because that’s cruel and possibly not entirely true.

“I’m a Half Life,” Mina sighs. She’s clutching Jay’s tape in her hands, like she wants to break it open and rip out the black coils of tape until they’re torn and Rupert can’t torment himself with the words any longer. “You won’t love a Half Life.”

Rupert stays silent for self-preservation; Mina fights every day, fights and keeps herself blind and blunts her teeth and he’s always been waiting for the day when she decides it isn’t worth it any more.

“It’s been twenty years,” Mina tells him. “I’ve given you twenty years and you still watch yourself around me. I’m a _vampire_ and that’s a line you won’t ever cross.”

To stay silent much longer would be unnecessarily cruel. “You love me?” Rupert asks, tone neutral.

“For the moment,” Mina replies. “For now. You’ll die; you’ll be gone.” Her lips tighten. “I’ve learned I can’t _keep_ the things I love.”

Maggie, and then Jay; Rupert learned that too. Mina’s really all he has, and he just _can’t_.

“You think if you give in to me you’ll become like Jay,” Mina murmurs. “Give an inch and the Half Life will take a mile.” She scowls, lips painted dark red like the femme fatale she honestly _is_. “He betrayed you, but I _haven’t_.”

“Not yet.” His voice doesn’t waver; if they’re laying down their stupid little lines then everything might as well be clear.

Mina sighs heavily. She hasn’t seen him in nearly a decade, and he wonders what image she has in her head of him. He gets worse every year, cracks a little more, and he hopes when he fails entirely Luke will be _ready_. 

“You’re a bastard,” she tells him, but doesn’t sound at all surprised. “But I knew that.”

Rupert concedes, just a little, just for her. “I need you,” he murmurs.

“You need me but you’ll never love me.” Mina’s smile fixes, her eyes seeing too far ahead. “It’s enough to get by on.”

She hands him back the video; his fingers curl a little too tight around it, the edges of the case digging into his skin.

“You have to tell Luke one day,” she mutters. 

“No, I don’t,” he replies.

+


End file.
